The world is going to end, again!

It's that time of the year again. It seems that every year there's a group of folk convinced that based on creative number juggling, they can predict the end of the world.


Quote:






The 2011 end times prediction is a belief held by followers of Harold Camping that the Rapture (in Christian belief, the taking up into heaven of God's elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011 and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011. These predictions were made by Camping, president of the Family Radio Christian network, who claims the Bible as his source. Believers claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world's population) will be raptured.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction

Now, I may be a typical skeptical atheist about all this, but I do have a few questions regarding this new prediction:



-Who do we talk to when the world doesn't end? And what is the explanation going to be this time? Are they going to move the date up a year like usual?

-After so many end of the world predictions, why would this one be any more accurate than the countless other predictions that failed?

-Why does the world have to end? Why are people so obsessed with this concept?|||I guess mom's not going to get a that card, those flowers, and that present this year for Mother's Day... dang, it is on the 8th.|||It doesn't take an atheist to be able to say that these guys are blatantly wrong. As a Christian, anybody who sets a date isn't reading their Bible.

Like any other false teacher, you can also bet that he's making a backup story for the morning after.|||The doomsayers have been in the subway at Grand Central for months. I saw a lady with a kid talking to them yesterday - that bugs me.

But, anyway, I can't help but wonder what they're going to do when the world doesn't end? Do they go "Well, crap, I must have calculated something wrong: The world must be ending in 2012, then!" Do they just jump on to the next apocalypse?

Is this why we have Welfare and crap? These people I see all day every day are clearly not working. If I thought the world was ending, I probably wouldn't work either. So what are they going to do when it doesn't end? How are they going to get back on their feet? This is the stuff that goes through my mind.

Anyway, weird how the world is ending in about a month and also in about seven months, in 2012.|||Quote:








Anyway, weird how the world is ending in about a month and also in about seven months, in 2012.




To be fair, the whole Mayan calendar thing isn't until the Winter Solstice of 2012. So, December 21st. |||Quote:








But, anyway, I can't help but wonder what they're going to do when the world doesn't end? Do they go "Well, crap, I must have calculated something wrong: The world must be ending in 2012, then!" Do they just jump on to the next apocalypse?




I do wonder who has to answer for the wrong prediction. Do these apocalypse believers turn to someone after the prediction failed? Frankly, I'd be pretty upset if the date turned out to be wrong and I believed it. Will any of them return with signs to apologise for being wrong? I'm willing to bet they won't.

You know, for the entertainment of this forum... maybe you could walk up to those folks at the Grand Central and ask them who we turn to when they are wrong? I seriously wonder if they've pondered the possibility of being wrong at all.|||Quote:








I do wonder who has to answer for the wrong prediction. Do these apocalypse believers turn to someone after the prediction failed?




What? There's no question about what happens. Someone says "opps, we must have done our calculations wrong." Then they pick another date and print out new signs. If we're lucky it's about a decade in the future.

I mean... if you assume that the bible is the inerrant word of god and that the date of the end of the world can be calculated from facts therein, and the world didn't end on the predicted date, there's only one possibility: you screwed up the calculations.

You might think people would be less likely to fall for it a second time... but you're forgetting that every generation since the start of Christianity has thought that the second coming would be in their lifetime. If these people were good at pattern recognition they wouldn't have believed the first date.|||I know no one's interested in the facts, but the Bible's pretty clear that no one will know the day nor the hour. So, there's that any time someone plunks down a date and starts wearing apocalyptic sandwich boards.|||I'll feed your dog in the event that you are taken by the rapture. There's nothing to worry about.|||Honestly, if I thought I could have a rational conversation with one of them, I would totally ask them what they do when they turn out to be wrong. I'm sure that, no matter what I say, their response will be "But the world IS ending! REPENT!!"

Anyway, I'm too much of a prick to word it in any way other than "So, when May 22nd comes and the world HASN'T ended..."

EDIT: I did some searching (sloowww day hahah) and it looks like Drec was right: They just recalculate. It appears that this May 21 thing is predicted by Harold Camping, who's made multiple incorrect predictions already. *thumbs up*

Now my question is: Does this guy believe his own BS or is he just suckering idiots into giving him money?